Some down-home cookin'

                On my way to church on Sunday mornings, I pass in front of Roper's, a small cafe in Simonton where the parking lot's always overflowing. I've often wondered why a small restaurant that's well off the beaten path would be so crowded early in the morning.

                Breakfast is one of my favorite meals on the weekend. The smell of hot pancakes and sizzling bacon always makes my mouth water, and nothing's beats sitting down with the newspaper, a hot breakfast and a full cup of coffee.

                I'm usually too lazy to pull out frying pans and griddles to cook for myself and I hate leaving the house early in the morning for breakfast. But last Sunday morning, I was once gain intrigued by all the vehicles in front of Roper's and pulled in to see why so many people visit this place.

                Thanks to Maria Silva, a friendly cashier at the front counter, I found out Roper's has been open for six years. Owners Marty and Lauren Gillespie aren't just names on the sign; they work alongside their staff in both the country store section and the cafe.

                The name Roper's has nothing to do with cowboys – it's a tribute to a friend's cattle dog. When ole Roper died, Lauren and Mary thought naming the cafe after that faithful pooch would be a great way to keep his memory alive.

                To the left of the front door is an almost hidden area where a dozen small tables are nestled. Red checked tablecloths create a homey atmosphere, and framed pictures look like what you'd find in your living room.

                Although the cafe is cozy and the staff is welcoming, what hits guests first are the delicious smells from the kitchen. Lauren and her team stay busy in the back, hand peeling dozens of potatoes that go into the tacos and creamy potato salad.

                What they do best, though, is making almost everything from scratch, from breakfast tacos to omelets where the diner decides what ingredients go into a light egg-based delicacy to a hand-pounded chicken-fried steak that not only covers the plate but leans over the side.

                Entrees range from a chicken tender basket to fried catfish. Side dishes like mashed potatoes, purple hull peas and fried okra are reminders of what our moms and grandmothers served at family get togethers.

                Lots of restaurants have great food, but what makes Roper's different is the family atmosphere. Maria said whenever she hears a vehicle pull into the parking lot, she glances out the window and, as she recognizes the person getting out of the vehicle, starts pouring their coffee, fixing it just the way they like it.

                In the mornings, the cafe fills quickly with "the regulars," people who stop in for a home-cooked breakfast before heading out to the work world.

                Men wearing blue button-down shirts chat easily with guys wearing faded denim shirts and starched jeans, and children are always welcome. Marty usually stays in the front, making small talk with customers while Lauren and her crew stay busy behind the scenes.

                When crawfish season arrives, the staff at Roper's hauls out big pots and hosts giant crawfish boils on Saturday evenings. Lauren's dad boils up the mudbugs, and customers love to sit at a table and dive into a pile of steaming hot crawfish and temper that Louisiana hot sauce with a cold Shiner.

                Good times, good food and good friends. That's what Roper's does well – allows old-timers and newcomers to sit a spell, talk about the weather, share a few laughs and leave with a smile and a full tummy.

                I'll take that dinner over caviar and candlelight any day of the week.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Still tilting at windmills

                When we're young, people ask us what we want to be when we grow up and the answer's often a model, a magician or president. These are whimsical careers, so as the years pass, we find professions to fit the persona we've grown into.

                As a child, I wanted to be a cowgirl. My bike was my trusty steed, and we circled the block – or the ranch as I liked to think – hundreds of times, always on the lookout for varmints. When I grew up, I realized I was scared of horses, so being a cowgirl was definitely not a vocation for me.

                When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an airline stewardess. I wanted to visit exotic places, and I thought a career with an airline would allow me to see the world with someone else footing the bill.

                As I took a responsible job as a secretary, I watched that dream of jetting away to Cairo, New York City and Paris dissipate like the long-ago dream of a little girl wanting to be a cowgirl.

                Motherhood came along and, over the years, I gladly accepted three blue bundles even though I was filled with terror, knowing I was responsible for those little lives. As time went on, I gradually felt more comfortable changing diapers, dispensing advice and protecting my boys from the cruelties of the world.

                We wanted to let them experience the fun of travel, so we'd occasionally fly to a colder climate during spring break. Out of the corner of my eye, I'd watch the flight attendants, wondering what faraway places they'd been to and where they were headed.

                A chance came along to work at a newspaper, and although I loved reading novels like "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and "Don Quixote" and had dabbled in a little bit of writing, I never thought I could be a writer because the responsibility is solemn.

                With a few well-placed words and phrases, a writer can squeeze hearts, open eyes or move mountains. Whenever I write a column, I say a quiet prayer that my words are helpful, not harmful. Even though I've been occupying this space for over 10 years, I still gnash my teeth and agonize over what's printed in this slot.

                More than just shouting into the wind, I fervently pray that if I'm writing a humorous column, someone will read the words in the midst of sorrow and a smile will sneak into their hearts.

                If a young mother is feeling overwhelmed, I hope reminiscences of my sweatshirts decorated with spit-up and linoleum floors that didn't see a broom for weeks hits home.

                More than that, though, I want to keep stoked a perpetual fire in my heart to remember the real job of a journalist:  to report the truth. Those of us who write must always remember that words are the most powerful weapon in the world.

                I'm reminded of that fact when I hear "America The Beautiful" and "Danny Boy" and the tears well in my eyes over those simple yet stirring lyrics. As I watch television shows like HBO's "Newsroom" and reruns of "The Wonder Years," I know there are talented and unsung wordsmiths out there igniting our brains and our hearts.

                To this day, when I watch women riding horses, I marvel at their grace and agility. When I'm on an airplane and watch flight attendants going about their tasks, I'm grateful they can gracefully handle emergencies at 30,000 feet in the air.

                I'll never be a cowgirl or a flight attendant. I'll never walk a runway in a $3,000 designer dress nor will I preside over the United Nations. But in my mind and from my keyboard, I can climb on a mythical white steed and, like Don Quixote, fight the windmills.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald, Fort Bend County's daily newspaper.

More to King than four words

                On Monday, we'll celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As time goes by, King's persona is often that of a man standing in front of a microphone giving his famous  "I have a dream" speech.

                But King was much more than a sound bite or a paragraph in a history book. Like many Americans, he was born poor. Growing up, he thought he was getting a good education, but when he got to college, King realized he was far behind the other white students. He studied, caught up and graduated from Boston University.

                His fight for civil rights began in 1954, and by 1955 he was one of the leaders in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. But King decided to follow a non-violent path for racial equality, and he was rewarded with having his home bombed, being arrested over 20 times and assaulted at least four times.

                At the age of 35, King was the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and he turned the $54,000 in prize money over to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. In 1968, he was senselessly assassinated, and the world lost a peaceful visionary.

                Over the years, I forgot most of what I knew about Dr. King. I mentally put him in a narrow category as a civil rights leader and felt sad when stories surfaced of his supposed extramarital affairs.

                But one day, I decided to read some of his writings to see for myself what King had to say and pulled up one of his most famous writings, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  I read every word, and was absolutely fascinated.

                King wrote the letter in 1963 while sweltering in a hot jail cell in Birmingham, Ala. The letter was written in the margins of newspapers and on the backs of legal papers and quietly smuggled out.

                The letter was not only an incredibly insightful reflection on the country, King's words became the philosophical foundation of the Civil Rights movement.

                King wrote he was in jail because injustice was there and he couldn't sit idly by and watch what was happening. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," he stated, and whatever "affects one of us affects us all."

                King describes the anguish Negros endured when they saw their mothers and fathers lynched. He wailed about the 20 million Negros living in poverty in an affluent society and how he had to explain to his 6-year-old daughter that she couldn't go to a public amusement park because she was the wrong color.

                I was so moved by "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," I read the entire "I Have a Dream" speech. It's easy to come away with only the last few lines but that's unfortunate because one misses some of the best civil rights thoughts ever put down on paper.

                "Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood," King states. He warns of drinking from the cup of bitterness and hate and urges people to rise to newer heights and not hate people for the color of their skin.

                His hope is deeply rooted in the American dream that all men are created equal and that, one day, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together.

                As many of us relax on a national holiday, let us remember the words of Dr. King. If we can take a nation that's still divided 40 years later and bring her together, there will be a "beautiful symphony of brotherhood."

                And from that vantage, all people can sing together "let freedom ring."

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald newspaper.

               

               

 

Oh to touch the sky

                I'm in search of the perfect tree. The criteria is simple – the first few branches ought to be close to the ground and the bark should be fairly smooth. The branches should gently expand to allow an adventurous 5-year-old to wedge her feet into the crevices so she can proceed upward.

                In short order, I'm looking for a suitable climbing tree.

                When I was young, there was a small grove of small trees between our house and my grandparents' house. My friends and I loved playing there because the trees offered a shady retreat as well as a great place to hide from the world.

                For hours, we'd wage war with our plastic army soldiers, dig holes and then line the holes with tin foil to make lakes. When we tired of playing in the dirt, we'd find a tree to climb and go as high as we could.

                I don't know what kind of trees grew in that stand, but there were enough branches in each tree to let us shimmy our way up at least 15 feet above the ground. We made more than our fair share of climbing mistakes, but, as time went by, we learned a few things.

                The first rule of successfully climbing a tree is making sure there are enough crevices and branches to use as foot and hand holds. The second is understanding that when you find a level, sturdy branch, it's time to stop, sit and dangle your feet in the open air.

                Once settled, I'd daydream about adventures I wanted to take and far-off lands I'd one day visit. Up there, on top of the world, I was a princess or what I wasn't most of the time, brave. Eventually we outgrew climbing trees, but memories of hours spent up in a tree always made me smile.

                When I became a mother, my sons loved nothing better than climbing trees, and they were much braver than their mother. They weren't satisfied until they climbed as high as they could, and nothing thrilled them better than swinging on a rope anchored firmly to a sturdy branch.

                So it was with great satisfaction I heard my granddaughter declare she was looking for a tree to climb. And like all former tree climbers, I began my search for the perfect tree for her to climb.

                That quest was harder than I thought it would be.

                First, the trees in newer neighborhoods are nothing more than saplings, and I didn't find any that could support the weight of a small child. Older trees in established neighborhoods have had all the lower branches trimmed away, and those with real promise were safeguarded behind formidable fences.

                I found myself constantly evaluating every tree I saw. They were either too tall, the trunks were too thick to climb up or the branches were too spindly. Finally I found a tree for her to climb, but, unfortunately, there was a huge mound of ants at the base of the tree, and neither one of us wanted to risk the bites.

                My granddaughter was disappointed, but her parents came to the rescue. Early one Saturday morning, they headed to Brazos Bend State Park where there are hundreds of majestic trees with low-to-the-ground branches.

                Within minutes, my son, his daughter and his young son were up in the branches while mom, eight months pregnant, remained on the ground, cheering her family on to greater heights.

                When I heard my phone beep with a picture of them snuggled in the branches of a tree, I smiled, the tears forming in my eyes because, thanks to their parents, my grandchildren discovered a wonderful secret.  

                They knew what it felt like to touch the sky.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Decorating - $101

              For many of us, part of starting a new year is making a list of personal resolutions to improve or add something to our lives. One of my favorites that doesn't include throwing away all the cookies in the pantry is redecorating.

                Unlike exercising or being nice to grouchy people, spiffing up our living space takes more than willpower – it takes money.

                Magazines and websites feature thousands of ideas to update and "evoke the essence of the aesthetic," but some are quite deceptive in how much they'll set you back. One of the most mentioned do-it-yourself spruce ups is replacing the pillows on the couch.

                The  last time I shopped, one new throw pillow from the local craft shop was $19.95. That's right – almost twenty dollars for some sequins, pom poms and stuffing. By the time I finished updating the five pillows on my couch, that simple spiff-it-up tip would set me back over $100.

                That's why I'm always a sucker for magazine articles about people who update their houses with recycled items. These articles promise readers pie-in-the-sky results if they can "reclaim elements" they're already using.

                "Shabby chic" is the name decorators gave to a trend that's nothing more than taking old stuff, making it look even older and then claiming you meant to put that chipped and dinged up coffee table front and center.

                The frosting on that old cupcake, though, is finding ingenious ways to incorporate natural items like branches, pine cones and rocks into your decorating palette.

                One article advocated using geodes for a natural look on an entry table. I love geodes as nothing's prettier than blue and purple geode crystals, but I priced geodes at a rock shop – they're $250 for one the size of a softball.

                I decorated our mantle with branches from a yaupon tree one year, but when the bugs decided to vacate the bark and take up residency in our living room and the red from the berries permanently stained the paint, I went back to artificial greenery.  

                One theory is universal – a bold splash of color is what every room needs. Orange pillows on the couch are perfect, one article stated, but there's no way my Aggie boys would ever allow me to have anything orange in the living room.

                Another decorator used sand to cover the top of an entry table to give a house a nautical feel. With two grandchildren under the age of 6, that sand would be everywhere except on the top of that table.

                To top it off, the decorator stood two canoe paddles against the wall to add to the nautical feel. Our grandchildren would think we'd put two battering rams in the house – not a great idea for anyone with imaginative children.

                Outfitting a home office generates over half the decorating articles. The start of a new year is when many of us try and get organized in the spot where we pay our bills or the kids do their homework.

                I thought I'd try and update my office area as well, perhaps finding something a bit fancier for my pens, pencils and scissors than old, chipped coffee mugs.

                But then I priced home office knick-knacks -- $12.95 was more than I wanted to spend for one cup holder, and I wasn't willing to fork over $10 for a special container to hold paper clips when a lopsided clay bowl my son made at Boy Scout camp works just dandy.

                Sitting back in my office chair that's about 10 years old, I realized I really am a down-home, green decorator. My decor won't make the shiny pages of "Better Homes and Gardens" magazine, but it suits my re-purposed aesthetic just fine.

           This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.